Black Widow Guilty, Fears It'll Be Chair

November 2, 1985|By Roger Roy of The Sentinel Staff

The woman investigators call the ''Black Widow'' poisoned her husband with arsenic in 1971 to collect his life insurance, an Orlando jury decided Friday. Jurors completed 10 1/2 hours of deliberations by finding Judy Buenoano, 42, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of James Goodyear.

Buenoano, who also has been convicted of drowning her partially paralyzed son and trying to blow up a fiance, sat quietly as the verdict was read at 2:10 p.m. in Orange County Circuit Court.

FOR THE RECORD - *************************** LIBRARIAN'S NOTE ****************************** Judi Buenoano's name has been spelled with both an i and a y. Records are inconsistent as to which is correct. The Sentinel has decided to use Judi as the correct spelling for stories in our paper. ****************************************************************************

A few tears rolled down her cheeks, but she regained her composure as she was fingerprinted, handcuffed and led back to jail.

''I know she was disappointed,'' said her lawyer, James Johnston. ''And I know that she is definitely worried about going to the electric chair.''

The jury of 10 men and 2 women will return Nov. 25 to hear evidence about the sentence they should recommend: life in prison or the electric chair.

The final decision rests with Circuit Judge Emerson Thompson Jr.

Buenoano already is serving a life prison sentence with no chance of release for 25 years.

If she does not get the death penalty for the murder of Goodyear, authorities in Colorado plan to charge her there in the death of Bobby Joe Morris, her common-law husband who died of apparent arsenic poisoning in 1978. Goodyear, an Air Force sergeant, died in September 1971 in a hospital at the Orlando Naval Training Center. He had returned four months before from a tour of duty in Vietnam. Doctors were puzzled by his death but attributed it to pneumonia, possible hepatitis and other complications.

Buenoano received $28,000 in life insurance and $64,000 in veterans' benefits after the death of her husband.

Authorities exhumed Goodyear last year after Buenoano, whose name means ''goodyear'' in Spanish, was charged with trying to kill her fiance in Pensacola to collect about $500,000 in life insurance.

The case against Buenoano in Goodyear's death was circumstantial:

-- Conversations with a close friend who testified that Buenoano ''joked'' about killing Goodyear with poison.

-- Statements she made to two women who testified that Buenoano had told them she killed her husband.

-- Lethal levels of arsenic in Goodyear's body.

But jurors also heard much evidence not related to Goodyear. Thompson allowed testimony about the death of Morris and the attempted poisoning of Buenoano's fiance in Pensacola so prosecutors could show a ''pattern of behavior.''

Jurors were not told that Buenoano was convicted of drowning her 19-year- old son in North Florida's East River in 1980, or that she was convicted of trying to kill her fiance, John Gentry, in Pensacola with a car bomb in 1983. Assistant State Attorney Belvin Perry said he will tell the jury about those cases when he asks them to recommend the death penalty.

Defense attorney Johnston, who fought introduction of evidence about the other cases during the trial, said he believes that evidence assured her conviction.

''Without that, the state really didn't have . . . a very strong case,'' Johnston said.

Perry said that evidence helped, but he said it just put together ''the whole picture.''

''There was the medical evidence, there were the two confessions, and the statement where she talked about poisoning him,'' Perry said. ''I think it was all the evidence together.''

Because jurors must return to consider Buenoano's sentence, Judge Thompson ordered them not to discuss the case or read or listen to any news accounts of the trial.

If Buenoano gets the death penalty, she will be only the second woman on death row in Florida. The other is a 26-year-old woman convicted of murdering a Jacksonville police officer.

The last woman executed in the United States was Velma Barfield, convicted in North Carolina of poisoning her fiance with arsenic. She was executed by lethal injection last year.

Johnston had told jurors in closing arguments Thursday that Buenoano reminded him of the words of a sad country and Western song: ''Nobody loves you when you're down.''

When the jury's verdict was read, there were no friends or relatives of Buenoano's in the courtroom.

Throughout the two-week trial, the crowd was made up almost exclusively of reporters and the curious.

Buenoano's other son, who is now 19, and her 18-year-old daughter were in the courtroom only while they testified this week.

Goodyear's sister and her husband, who sat through the trial, appeared relieved at the verdict. They had no comment as they left the courthouse.